What an amazing subject Providence is. When you think of the vast knowledge of God in light of the fact that He neither slumbers or sleeps, and in Him there is no variableness or shadow of turning. It is as though I am embarking on a long journey with nothing but an ancient map of curious thought. A long the way we must surely address the idea of Free Will and Predestination. Brilliant men have put their two cents worth of probing possibilities and searched to discover what part does God play in how really free our will is. We are not robots but free moral agents whom God has given the ability to choose right and wrong.
I have some questions in regard to passages of scripture, which may help us come to realistic conclusions on this subject. My attention is drawn to 1 Corinthians 12:6 and Ephesians 1:11, you find the expression, "HE WORKETH" and you are led to believe that leads to a grand crescendo, a climax or a final act as in a great novel being written. Ephesians 2:10, "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them". When we are living fully in His will then people can read our lives like a well read book, in that "we are epistles known and read by all men".
He works all things in I Corinthians. 12:6, and works all things also in this respect, "according to the counsel of His will," Ephesians. 1:11. He gave and works in and through believers like you and I. As we read in Philippians 2:12-13, "So then, my dearest friends, as you have always followed my advice—and that not only when I was present to give it—so now that I am far away be keener than ever to work out the salvation that God has given you with a proper sense of awe and responsibility. For it is God who is at work within you, giving you the will and the power to achieve his purpose." There must be decisions made to fulfill His purpose.
It has been said, "Man proposes, God disposes." I believe the Holy Spirit is at work in us and is participating by leading us through the Word of God we have hidden in our hearts. He has made us partakers of His Divine nature through Promises He has deposited in our lives. The very nature of Jesus was that He was a promised son and He demonstrated His Deity by the signs, wonders and miracles He performed.
"You must have heard how God anointed him with the power of the Holy Spirit, of how he went about doing good and healing all who suffered from the devil's power—because God was with him. Now we are eyewitnesses of everything that he did, both in the country of Judea and in Jerusalem itself, and yet they murdered him by hanging him on a cross. But on the third day God raised that same Jesus and let him be clearly seen, not indeed by the whole people, but by witnesses whom God had previously chosen. We are those witnesses, we who ate and drank with him after he had risen from the dead! Moreover, we are the men whom he commanded to preach to the people and bear fearless witness to the fact that he is the one appointed by God to be the judge of both the living and the dead. It is to him that all the prophets bear witness, that every man who believes in him may receive forgiveness of sins through his name." The Book of Acts 10:38-43
It is also in the book of Acts 17:28, we learn that "In Him we live and move and have our being." It can be said that God causes everything in nature to work and to move in the direction of a pre-determined end.This is why I call us the moving parts in God's grand scheme of things. It is God that works in us both to will and do of His own great pleasure.
Resting in the arms of Providence,
Cleddie Keith
I have some questions in regard to passages of scripture, which may help us come to realistic conclusions on this subject. My attention is drawn to 1 Corinthians 12:6 and Ephesians 1:11, you find the expression, "HE WORKETH" and you are led to believe that leads to a grand crescendo, a climax or a final act as in a great novel being written. Ephesians 2:10, "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them". When we are living fully in His will then people can read our lives like a well read book, in that "we are epistles known and read by all men".
He works all things in I Corinthians. 12:6, and works all things also in this respect, "according to the counsel of His will," Ephesians. 1:11. He gave and works in and through believers like you and I. As we read in Philippians 2:12-13, "So then, my dearest friends, as you have always followed my advice—and that not only when I was present to give it—so now that I am far away be keener than ever to work out the salvation that God has given you with a proper sense of awe and responsibility. For it is God who is at work within you, giving you the will and the power to achieve his purpose." There must be decisions made to fulfill His purpose.
It has been said, "Man proposes, God disposes." I believe the Holy Spirit is at work in us and is participating by leading us through the Word of God we have hidden in our hearts. He has made us partakers of His Divine nature through Promises He has deposited in our lives. The very nature of Jesus was that He was a promised son and He demonstrated His Deity by the signs, wonders and miracles He performed.
"You must have heard how God anointed him with the power of the Holy Spirit, of how he went about doing good and healing all who suffered from the devil's power—because God was with him. Now we are eyewitnesses of everything that he did, both in the country of Judea and in Jerusalem itself, and yet they murdered him by hanging him on a cross. But on the third day God raised that same Jesus and let him be clearly seen, not indeed by the whole people, but by witnesses whom God had previously chosen. We are those witnesses, we who ate and drank with him after he had risen from the dead! Moreover, we are the men whom he commanded to preach to the people and bear fearless witness to the fact that he is the one appointed by God to be the judge of both the living and the dead. It is to him that all the prophets bear witness, that every man who believes in him may receive forgiveness of sins through his name." The Book of Acts 10:38-43
It is also in the book of Acts 17:28, we learn that "In Him we live and move and have our being." It can be said that God causes everything in nature to work and to move in the direction of a pre-determined end.This is why I call us the moving parts in God's grand scheme of things. It is God that works in us both to will and do of His own great pleasure.
Resting in the arms of Providence,
Cleddie Keith